So a few months ago I walk into EB, and start flicking through the used games. About 5 minutes in, I find myself looking through the old Playstation games (EB in Canada still carries them), and I come across this. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. Three dollars.

I was pretty excited, and I immediately took it to the register, which in hindsight was a poor decision because often when someone trades in a gem of this calibre, they have also traded in some other quality titles at the same time. Why would someone trade something so awesome, for obviously less than $3? I didnít know, and I was going to get it out of the store before anyone could change their mind.

I took it to the register, and the manager of the store looked at it, and asked the new guy why it had been put out on the floor. For $3 no less. Usually someone working at the place would recognize that this is an unusual title, and at least ask someone before putting a price sticker on it, so I knew that I had caught a major break. The manager grudgingly found the discs for it, and put it through the register, so I got out of there before anyone could change their mind Ė in retrospect, this behaviour was a little paranoid.

As I was driving home, it occurred to me that this is a Working Design game (may they rest in peace), and so it should probably come with a cardboard box, and a litany of promo items, but for $3, I was willing to just try and get that stuff on ebay or something later.

Working Design shipped every copy of the game they printed with everything you see here.

So understanding that I was just getting the game, and my Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, was ironically incomplete, how could I possibly be disappointed by getting it for just $3? On ebay, I might get $50 for it in this condition.

OK, no instructions, that sucks.

The instructions were missing? This one was completely on me, I should have looked for them before I bought the thing. Oh well, for $3, still not a bad deal, and if Iím going to make it complete by buying what Iím missing off of ebay, then the instructions are only going to run me a few more dollars.

Youíve got to be kidding me.

Yeah, no disc 3 for the game. Even if I didnít care how collectible it was, and just wanted to play the game, I canít even finish it. This one is on EB, they should have done their homework when they accepted the trade, and made sure that everything you needed to finish the game was included. I phoned them, and asked them if they had just missed it or something, but they said they couldnít find it.

The back of the game states thereís only supposed to be three discs...díoh

The game itself is spread over three discs, and the fourth disc is a bonus, but these details are lost on the new guy at EB.

So I paid three dollars for a game, and got ripped off.

Epilogue

So I had hastily planned to get the expensive part of the game for $3, and try and salvage the rest from incomplete ebay lots, but Iíve evidently got a copy thatís more spare parts than game. Now Iíd just like to make someone elseís copy complete, and find some sort of happy ending for this.

If anyone needs some of the discs Iíve got, or maybe wants the paper inserts out of the jewel case to replace some damaged ones or something, I would be happy to send them to you free of charge. Iím not sure under what circumstances (besides my unfortunate case) another copy of the game would get split up like this, but if youíve found yourself just missing a disc 2 or something, let me know. Right now I just want to dismantle it for the sweet, sweet double case that I can use to replace one of my damaged cases on a different game, but everything else is up for grabs. read

Microsoft Excel is an excellent way to keep track of everything in your gaming collection. If youíre finding it difficult to understand why you would want to put the time into essentially making a list of everything gaming related that youíve got, Iím not really sure what I could say that would convince you. For me, I needed a way to keep track of what belonged to me, and what belonged to my brother. I wouldnít say that thereís a certain number of games that you should have before this is a good use of your time, but if you have more than you can list off the top of your head, you could probably find something about this sort of a project that would be valuable to you.

That being said, I am writing this for the benefit of people who can already see some of the merits of having such a record. I intend to demonstrate some of what can be done, and less on how precisely to do it, because I expect that this is not the best medium to make a highly technical discussion of Excel. Iíve got lots of screenshots, and Iím sure that many that read this will be in awe of my mad Paint skills. If youíre already very familiar with Excel, this article wonít have much for you as Iím intending to start from the beginning.

My games database

To have a good file, youíre going to want to do two things Ė start by making a database of the stuff you own, and then make a place to read important information/statistics from that database. This separated approach makes the whole thing a lot tidier, and also makes it MUCH easier to automate later on, should you decide you want to.

The first thing that you want to do is dedicate a worksheet (tab) as an exclusive database for your games. By this I mean that you want to organize a worksheet into a series of columns and rows, that start with headers at row number 1, column A. If you start with this, you will be able to have other sheets that read information from this database, so having an organized sheet, with nothing else on it is important.
You need to decide for yourself what aspects of your games are important to you, and dedicate a column in your workbook for each of these things. Keep in mind that the more information you have, the more statistical information youíll be able to pull out of it. In my workbook Iíve kept track of things for each game I own, such as:

Title, Platform (System), Owner, # of copies, Series, Company (that makes the system), Publisher/Developer of the game, genre, sub-genre, year of release, does the game have instructions/box/inserted extras, what version of the game do I have (Greatest Hits, Collectorís Edition...), # of discs, and did I buy it new or used?

I have also included some binary fields, such as mobility (console/handheld). The reason I have these binary fields, which appear completely obvious, and offer no information to someone who already knows that an NES is a console rather than a handheld, is simply that Excel does not know this. If I want to cross-reference this information later, and find out how many Nintendo handheld games I own, this field is remarkably useful, as I will later demonstrate. Certainly you have to make your own judgment call on which of these fields are useful/meaningful to you.

Some other fields that I would love to have would be what I paid for each game, and where I got each game. Maybe youíd like to include a field to remind you of whether or not youíve played/completed a game, or some other more descriptive measure of progress. Itís very important that you decide what fields youíre interested in BEFORE you start entering every game you own into the file, so put some thought into it.

Freeze panes to make the title of your games, and your field headers always visible while you scroll.

I want to point out two little technical details that will make entering games much easier for you. First is freezing panes, which you can do by selecting a cell (start with B2), and then clicking ďFreeze PanesĒ in the ďViewĒ menu if youíve got Excel 2007 (itís in the ďWindowĒ menu in 2003).

Put an autofilter on your column headings.

The second thing is to select filter from the ďDataĒ menu once youíve written down all of your field headings (I think itís autofilter under the ďDataĒ menu in 2003, not sure). Next to each of your headings youíll get a little arrow that opens a drop menu when you click it. This will let you filter your database, so that you can find only your NES games quickly if youíd like.

One more little trick Iíd like to mention is that itís very helpful to have an extra column as a Sort field. When you finish putting in all your games, youíre going to want to sort them, perhaps by system, and then by title Ė itís up to you, but all very easy to do with the ďSortĒ button on the ďDataĒ menu. But letís say that like me, you want to have the games come up in a very particular way, and alphabetical just isnít enough of a criteria to get it the way you want. What if you want to have it organized by company (Nintendo, Sony, Sega, Microsoft), then by handheld/console, then by age of console, THEN by title? You might be way better at Excel than I am, and able to just do it, but the simplest way is to create a column that when sorted alphabetically, will be in this very particular order.

For example, every NES game I have is coded N1 (Nintendo 1). Every SNES game is N2. PS games are S1, Sega Master System games are SG1, XBOX games are X1. This labelling may have to be adjusted if you go and buy an old system, but itís not a big deal to change later if you need to, and gives you a little more organizational control. If your first sort field is the ďSortĒ header, then everything will come up the way you want it.

So now youíre ready to enter every game you own, row by row, into this to make a database. Although this is tedious, I actually really enjoyed going back through all my old games, and I think you might find that itís a little nostalgic. Some of the information is a little tough to remember (like what year the game was released), and although you can sometimes hunt down this information on a cartridge or instruction manual, I find that itís easier to just look up online (I use gamefaqs).

Now you need a sheet to read your database, and tell you about it.

Now that youíve got your database up and ready to go, youíre done with that tab until the next time you buy a game and you need to add it. You probably would like to keep track of how many games you own for each system, perhaps who owns how many for each system, and probably some other stuff. Iím not going to go into too much detail, but you should know that every cell can either hold a value, or a formula, and in this case there are a few exceptional formulae that can really help you out. I strongly recommend that you type each of these formulae into the help search field, to find out what they can do:

These give you a lot of options to find the numbers of things in your database, based on certain conditions. Iíd like to point out that you can use $ signs in your cell addresses (eg. $A$5), to distinguish between absolute and relative cell references (search that in the help), which will help you drag formulae to copy quickly the same formula into multiple cells, and get the effect that you want. This is particularly useful in capturing changing ranges in for example finding the cumulative number of games that you have at a particular year. Also, the * is the Ďwildcardí character, so if you wanted to find out how many games you have which have a title starting with the letter 't', you would use something like =COUNTIF(GAMES!A:A,"T*").

With the above information, and some incredibly trivial adding of cells, you could completely recreate the screenshot above, and keep track of how many games you have for each system, for each game company, how many handhelds/console games you have, how many games by year, and by alphabet, and where in your room that game is located. In short, you can know even the most useless of information about your collection.

Iíd like to point out that you can also create and maintain databases for your hardware:

Surprise! Itís ANOTHER database!

This will allow you to keep track of how many different consoles/formats you have, maybe how many controllers you have, and so on. I have databases for games, hardware, guides and swag, and Funktastic keeps another for soundtracks. Again, the more information you have to look through, the more (meaningful/meaningless) associations/statistics you can keep track of.

Now I mentioned before that you can do some awesome cross-referencing stuff with Excel, so if youíve stuck around this long, congratulations, youíre about to learn the most powerful, simplest Excel tool there is...

The pivot table.

Pivot tables are incredibly powerful cross-referencing tools, which only take about 30 seconds to set up once youíve got a database all ready to go. Go to the tab that has your games database on it, go to the insert menu and select pivot table (both in 2007 and 2003). In both cases, a little wizard pops up, and you select the range of your database (in 2007 it will be selected for you), and then it takes you to a screen like above.

Your fields are on the right side of the screen, and have the same headers that you used in your database (yeah, there was a reason I made such a fuss about all that database organization bullshit). The blue outline on the top left is about to get WAY more awesome, as you drag and drop fields in the right menu onto the outline. Letís say you want to know who owns how many games of each genre for each system...

Drag and drop Platform, and then Genre (or whatever you called them) into the left side of the pivot table.

Then drag Owner into the top row of the pivot table, and Title into the big, rectangular bottom right part. You can now see a count of how many titles you have, divided into the cross-referenced way that youíve selected. Yeah, that took about 30 seconds.

Now you've got pivot table.

Still not impressed? A count of titles is nice, but you want to know what those titles are right?

Digging a little deeper...

Letís say I want to know which RPGs on the DS I own. I find the cell on the pivot table, and double click it.

Behold! The true power of Excel!

Instantly, a new tab is created, and it pulls everything matching the criteria I have selected out of the database (it doesnít literally remove it, just makes a copy of it). Yeah, you can do that in Excel, and itís totally awesome.

Pivot tables have autofilters built in.

One more tiny little detail is that each of the fields that you drag has its own autofilter built in. It should also be noted that once you make a pivot table, it uses the data range that you have selected, until you right click on the table and tell it to refresh. This means that every time you add a new record to your database, your pivot table will be unable to find it until you refresh it.

So thatís pretty much everything that you can do in Excel with zero experience. Iím going to continue on to let you know of some other really cool things that are possible, but they involve programming in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), so you need a little dedication if youíd care to learn it, and this seems like a really inappropriate forum for teaching programming.

My custom userform for adding new games to my database

So what is VBA? Itís just another programming language, and this one is specifically used in Microsoft Office, and more generally within Windows. In the context of Excel, VBA allows you to write macros, which can automate routine tasks. Above is a custom userform that I have made, where I can enter my new games information, and this will be copied into the database. Itís really just a nicer user interface than filling it in cell-by-cell.

The VBA editor can be accessed by ALT+F11, or you can turn on the developer menu, and access it there. You can write macros either to be triggered by a button somewhere in your file, a hotkey combination, or from a userform like above.

Some random VBA code.

You code in an object-oriented language that is very similar to every other object-oriented language out there. I assert that it is EXTREMELY easy to use, even if you have no experience, you can figure out what to do just by reading the excellent help file, and maybe visiting some online help forums. If you can do it with a mouse and keyboard, or you can think of a way that it could be done by hand, there is a way to automate it with VBA.

Success! The userform in action.

As I said before, the result of all of your coding work is that you get to use a nice interface within Excel. You use the code to make everything else easier/simpler, and once youíve got it programmed, you donít have to touch the VBA again (unless you think of some cool new feature to add).

Part of what makes it so easy is that you can record macros. Letís say youíd like to find the VBA code to make a cells font bold, size 10. Thatís obviously something very easy to do with the mouse and keyboard, so you can simply start recording a macro, change the font in one cell, stop recording, and then view the code that was generated. Although this code by itself might not be very useful, you can usually generalize it and figure it out.

My series report userform in action

One of the features Iíve made lets me search my databases for all items within a particular series, and generate a report of these items. I can select up to 8 different series, and find out which games, special edition games, guides, and SWAG/promos I have related to these series, copied out into a nice little report.

The fruits of my series report macro

It probably took me 10 hours to write the thing (I am by no means the worldís greatest programmer), but it turned out the way I want it, and it really is a satisfying result. I was able to slightly modify a copy to do the same thing based on the publisher/developer field rather than series, in about a half hour.

So thatís basically everything Iíve got to say about using Excel to keep track of your stuff. I truly hope that if youíve spent the time to read through this that youíve found something useful in it. I hope that Iíve conveyed just how easy this is to do, and that itís really just a matter of finding the time to do it. I find looking at other peoples spreadsheets a confusing affair, but if you feel that looking through mine would help you set up your own, Iíd be more than happy to send you a copy, just let me know what version of Excel youíve got. I get a very sick enjoyment out of discussing the technical details of Excel, and while I feel that Iíve shown great restraint in this article, I would definitely welcome any questions or comments or suggestions if youíd care to PM me about it.

NOTE I think I've got the way this works figured out now, but I had already released this same post on friday evening. A few hours later the site went down, so basically no one noticed. I have been visiting the site for quite a while now, and I know that my favourite articles involve getting to see other peoples setups and found treasures, so I'm reposting again in the hopes that others will get the same satisfaction out of seeing my setup. Sorry if the whole reposting thing isn't kosher - it won't happen again.
END NOTE

So I've been visiting the site passively for over a year now, and I figured it's about time that I started getting more involved. All the cool kids seem to start out with an introductory post that includes their gaming setup, so I'm just going with the flow. Also I'm pretty proud of my setup, so it doesn't take much of an excuse for me to try and show it off.

I consider myself a collector, and currently I've got about 1100 games, although I suppose that it should be pointed out that about 20% actually belong to my brother. I've probably only played 15% of them personally, but of the games that I do play (mostly CoD4), I play a lot. Like 50 days on CoD4. I would have to say that after CoD4, my second favourite game of all time is Microsoft Excel. I know it's pathetic, but I really enjoy designing spreadsheets, of which my pride and joy is the workbook that contains all of the details of my gaming collection (more on that later).

When I posted this before, Pure Poison queried where I got the games from which I thought was a good question. I try to buy the recent stuff a few months after it comes out from Wal-Mart/Best Buy/Superstore/EB Games. The older stuff I like to get off of ebay/goozex.com(great site that unfortunately excludes Australia)/Cash Converters (a pawn shop). I buy a lot of guides from amazon. It was also suggested that I post again later with close ups of the games, but that's probably not something I'm going to do for my entire collection. As it stands, for those interested in what games I have in specific, the pictures at the bottom of the post are a high enough resolution to read most of the spines of the games. I know, it's lazy.

My PC and Sega station in the same shot as part of my handheld shelves.

I spend the (vast) majority of my time in my gaming room, so I've put a lot of effort into it. The long white wall shelves I painted and installed, and most of the cabinetry came from Ikea. The shelves above my good TV that hold all my recent generation console games are 12' 6" long, and the handheld shelves above my old TV are 7' long, totalling about 64'. Out of curiousity I took a tape measure to my games, and stacked on top of each other, the contents of these shelves come out to over 50', which I thought was a pretty novel way to measure game quantities.

Continuing on around the room, is some exercise equipment, and my gaming closet.

Back to the left side of my console shelves for a closer look.

Some of my favourites here include Counterstrike, Dreamfall, KOTOR, Bomberman, Mario Power Tennis, Skies of Arcadia, Atelier Iris, Dynasty Warriors, and Final Fantasy X, X-2 and XII. I collect a lot of good games, but I also get a lot of volume so there's some filler in there like World War II Combat: Iwo Jima (horrible, horrible game, among the most broken that I've got), and ATHF: ZNPA which is also exceedingly not-fun.

The middle (barren) section of my console shelves. Mostly just swag.

Of note here is some stuff that Funktastic was kind enough to help me obtain including the Jap Club Nintendo Mario Gamecube Controller, and the Club Nintendo Wii controller that works as a TV remote. The LoZ: TP Hyrulian Shield and Master Sword set is pretty sweet, and the Hanafuda cards there are alright I guess. Games that I particularly enjoyed are MGS3: Subsistence (the best example of storytelling in a video game that I've ever come across, although Dreamfall was really engaging too), Phantom Brave and Metal Saga (because I really enjoy dungeon crawling/ level grinding).

The right section of my console shelves - current generation of systems.

On the middle shelf on the left is one of the preorder bonus plush toys from Elebits. It's the creepy blue one, so I keep it inside the box. My favourite games here include CoD2, and CoD4, which are two of the best shooters ever made hands down. I've probably got 90 days played between the two of them, and I honestly consider being in the top 200 X360 CoD4 players worldwide more of an accomplishment than the degree I just finished. Other favourites include Portal, TF2, Dokapon Kingdom and MGS4.

My good TV.

Under my console shelves is my good TV - a 52" Sharp Aquos LCD, that lets me play CoD4 and MGS4 in 1080p. I've got a small soundsystem on the bottom left, my HD Digital Cable box bottom right, and my Dreamcast top left. The item on the top right is a Joytech Control Center, which allows me to route my audio through the soundsystem, and provides 6+ extra inputs for all of my consoles. It's an exceptional product that I strongly recommend for anyone who wants to hook up a bunch of equipment, and I wouldn't be able to keep all of my consoles in a ready-to-play state without it.

The backside of my TV is a veritable clusterfuck of cables.

The left section under my console shelves is my Nintendo cabinet.

I've got my older Nintendo games in this cabinet, and I keep the more recent Nintendo systems here.

My more recent Nintendo Handhelds and my SNES games

I don't have a more visible way to display my SNES games which is unfortunate because I've got a lot of the good ones (although I have to admit that I'm totally jealous of Funktastic's SNES collection - it's pretty incredible). Some of the best I've got include BoF 1&2, Chrono Trigger, Contra III, Earthbound, FF II&III, Harvest Moon, LoZ: LttP, Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana, Sunset Riders, Super Mario RPG, and Super Metroid.

My NES games

I've got a few good ones here including Contra, Contra Super C, Contra Force, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Metroid, River City Ransom, and the two original Zeldas.

My N64 games

Although I started with the NES and the SNES growing up, I didn't really get into gaming until the N64, so it's one of my favourite systems. I have to mention my exceptional Perfect Dark file. I confess to using the Combat Simulator glitch to get 1-4 stars on each of the challenges, and I used a gameshark to beat the Perfect Agent Difficulty of Attack Ship Covert Assault on Co-op. Other than that I was completely honest in obtaining every other star in the game, and obtaining every cheat honestly. I reached the status of Perfect Agent 1 with my multiplayer character, and frustrated friends badly enough that they refused to play multiplayer with me. It was my greatest accomplishment as a 14-year-old.

When I have friends over, the N64 is still played because its split-screen multiplayer is just unrivaled by anything that's come out since. Mario Kart 64 battle mode and Kirby Crystal Shards multiplayer are some of the best competitions ever. Rogue Squadron is another of my all time favourite games.

My other console cabinet

I've got an assortment of systems on my other console cabinet including all of my playstations. These pictures were taken a few months ago and a couple X360s ago, so now I've got my refurbished Elite here, and my other X360 on another TV. I am supremely hooked on XBOX Live but I despise M$, and particularly their lack of accountability for their hardware. I am currently playing on my 8th X360 Console. I gave the refurb that was a descendent of my launch console to Funktastic, and eventually bought a second Console just so that I can keep one up and running at all times, so now I've got two at my house.

My original Playstation and Dreamcast games.

I've got some good stuff here including a ton of FF games, and a bunch of other Square games for the original Playstation. Some of the quality stuff on the Dreamcast includes Grandia II, Shenmue, a sealed Skies of Arcadia, and recently a Marvel VS Capcom 2 that isn't pictured (go Goozex!).

The left side of my handheld shelves.

Moving onto my handheld shelves, I've got my DS, PSP, and GB/GBC/GBA games here. Unfortunately I've got a lot of really great in box GBA games since taking these photos such as Perfect Dark, Pokemon Pinball and Golden Sun that aren't pictured here. Of the stuff that is pictured here, most of it is pretty recent/standard fare, but of note is the GBC Metal Gear complete in box I found at an EB not too long ago, as well as a Final Fantasy Adventure Complete that I got off of ebay.

The right side of my handheld shelves.

I've got a couple art cells that I really like here, and the feather stylus bonus from Phantom Hourglass. I got a PAL copy of Breath of Fire III, and Tales of Eternia, and also some moonspeak Tales games. For a brief time I collected some Jap games, but I've since decided that I don't want to go down that road first because I can't understand the language, and second because the moonspeak on the spines of the games looks really out of place in my collection.

The rest of my handheld collection is unfortunately cartridge only.

I used to move around a lot, so I threw out the boxes for games because they took up too much space. Unfortunately some of these included Contra on GBA, the original Pokemon trilogy, Mario Kart GBA, Metroid Fusion and Zelda Four Swords Adventure. I've since learned my lesson, and I try to buy only complete games from places like Ebay, and Cash Converters (a pawn shop). Funktastic has a pretty sweet deal going on there with Diamond Dave, and he's kind enough to let me pick through his leftovers. I did have my photographer (Funktastic) get some close ups of these games, but I figure that the length of this post is probably already trying the readers patience so I haven't included them.

My old TV.

I kept my old TV when I got my good one and I use it mostly to watch hockey when I'm playing CoD4. I've got a VCR and my old Nintendo consoles hooked up to it, along with my original XBOX so that I can play DVDs.

My PC.

I truly dislike PC gaming and I have no idea what sort of specs this machine has. The games here are all my brothers, and I'm pretty sure that the last PC game that I played was either Oregon Trail II, or the original The Sims. It does have Media Centre, so I've got it hooked up with cable and linked to my X360. It also has the undisputed greatest PC game of all time - Microsoft Office Excel. I've got a pretty sweet RE4 mousepad there.

Screenshot of my Collection File.

I really enjoy making spreadsheets, and this is the one I'm proudest of. It's got 12 tabs, and ~200k cells representing a detailed description and record of my gaming collection. I've probably spent 120 hours on it now, and it includes macros for entering new games, running reports out of the game database and sorting automatically various tabs on the file. I have modified a copy of the file for Funktastic, and would be thrilled to discuss/develop files for other people that are interested in having a record of their gaming library.

Of the things that I can bring to the community, the cataloguing/recording and organization of gaming stuff is something that I have a lot of experience with, and I plan on making future posts about these topics.

Sega station.

Older Sega games.

Next to my PC I've got my pitiful assortment of Sega games. I've got some Sega Master System stuff, a Genesis, and a Saturn. Of particular note is the Nights with 3D Control pad, but other than that it's pretty much the most common games for the systems. Mostly a bunch of Sonic stuff, some Lethal Enforcers, and Alien Syndrome for the SMS.

My gaming closet.

Unlike certain members on this site (*cough* Funktastic) I prefer to keep as much of the clutter as possible out of sight. I have a closet filled with extra cables/swag so that I can keep my room tidy. I have OCD or something, so the neatness that I hope is conveyed in these pictures is actually how I keep this room at all times, except for when I have people over and we pull a bunch of controllers and games out.

Top shelf of my bookcase.

Bottom shelf of my bookcase.

I got an Ikea bookcase to hold all my gaming literature and some assorted gaming paraphanalia. My old handheld graveyard is on the top shelf along with a ton of little accessories, and some GC-GBA link cables. Wii junk and some wired GC controllers on the next shelf.

I am a huge fan of game guides and I feel that the artwork and record of the gaming experience contained in these is valuable even if you consider it cheating to use them. I really like collecting things in games, and I find that it's convenient to have a list in your hand of all the things that you're trying to collect, rather than checking up on a computer screen, or worse, generating piles of garbage printoffs. Some of my favourite guides include the Zelda Collector's Edition guide, and the MGS3 guide. I've got the official guide for every Final Fantasy Playstation game I own, and I have most of the guides for the Zelda series.

Left side of my closet.

I keep the issues of NP that I read, and have a bunch of connecting cables for my Nintendo Systems here. The stack of cases houses all of my cartidge only games, as well as my game gear. The top shelf is the place in this room that houses all of my non-gaming related items. I've got some DVDs of some TV series that I like here including Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Arrested Development, ATHF, and Trailer Park Boys, along with some VHS of Married with Chlidren.

Right side of my closet.

I keep my French copies of instructions/cover inserts on the top shelf here (Canadian gamers know what I'm talking about), and other assorted swag on the top shelf. The next shelf is a pile of Atari 2600 games, and a 2600 of some sort that I bought as a single lot from Cash Converters recently. I don't know if it works, because I'm uncertain that my attempts at hooking it up have been correct, so any advice on this relic would be most welcome. (I'll probably make a plea for help about it later). I've got some historically relevant games for it such as E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Asteroids, and it would be pretty cool to find out if any of them actually still play.
I've got my extra PS and SNES here as well as a Super Scope. Other than that, it's mostly just a bunch of extra connection cables.

Closet tetris.

In the top of my closet, I've stacked a TON of old system boxes and some game boxes for things that have large peripherals. It takes a good 15 minutes to take everything down out of there, and about an hour to tetris everything in a way that fits.

PARTY MODE - ACTIVATE!

I regularly have people over to play multiplayer games - something that I'll probably post about at a later time. I really like having the seating arrangement with two perpendicular TVs so that I can keep more stuff going at once. Being able to fold out the couch is a pretty sweet way to increase the seating. Funktastic and I occassionally get CoD4 online going on both TVs, so that if I die on my screen I can commandeer his controller, effectively gaining an extra life (I take Hardcore S&D seriously).

That's pretty much the end of what I've got to say. I hope that the quantity of pictures (thanks Funktastic) is apology enough for the length of the post. I must say that I'm quite grateful for a site that allows such independent thought and consideration of gaming news and interests, and I plan on being a more active contributor to the community. read

About possumwranglerOne of us since 9:08 PM on 02.13.2009

Greetings from Calgary, Alberta, Canada!

I'm new to Destructoid, but I've been playing games for the last twenty years and collecting them for the last five or so. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with xbox - I hate the hardware, but love xbox live. I'm a veteran of many online/offline battles including:

N64
Goldeneye
Perfect Dark (PERFECT File!)

PS2
SOCOM
SOCOM 2

XBOX
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Counterstrike

X360
CoD2
CoD4

I'm currently pretty engaged in CoD4 (about 50 days played), so if you're interested in some Hardcore S&D, let me know. My favourite games are FPSs, but I've certainly got an open mind, and I collect games from every genre. My favourite series are pretty mainstream - CoD, MGS, GTA, Zelda, Final Fantasy.

Recent Games Played:
CoD4
FFCC: Echoes of Time
Dokapon Kingdom
Mario Power Tennis

I've passively visited Destructoid for the last year or so, and I think it's about time I got more involved, so I'm going to start with an introductory blog post, and be more active by participating in discussions on gaming on this site.